What I expect from the contractor is that he will manage his material procurement so that he can give me a firm price at the time of the contract, and that he will know the market and what he has to do to make money on that contract. As a customer, I am not in the business of buying copper pipe.

At the time of signing, the contractor has the opportunity to buy or lock in the prices for his material. He might get a deposit from the buyer to cover the cost risk of immediate material purchases.

There should be a provision for a cancellation charge if the buyer cancels the contract, covered by the deposit.

For items that can't be ordered until some time late in the contract, the pricing could be tied to some index not under control of the contractor.

I would not sign a contract with a contractor that gave him an open-ended way to increase prices after I signed the contract. How many plumbers are giving post-signing discounts now that the price of copper has dropped a bit?

Statements like the ones above are normaly reserved for comercial contracts that are large and may not start for months or a job that may take months or years to complete. A small home job may not have sections in the contract like that but I feel bad fro the contractor who wrote and signed a contract only to have his copper price go up 30% over night. Wire and copper pipe prices did just that recently.

Just reading this thread brings back bad memories when I had to take on larger scale jobs where estimates were required. I'm so grateful that it's all behind me now. Nothing worse than being hustled by someone after the bottom dollar.

No matter how hard I tried to hit my marks, I always had a diminished hourly rate when you did the math, which was quite painful sometimes. To me it seems that situations like that was what the customer was wanting all along, I was just the fool for doing it I guess.

If you could do it, I'd specify labor charges only, customer buys the material. I had one customer about a month ago wanting me to install the drain line to a toilet by accessing the cleanout with a threaded male adaptor, turn up a cleanout and bring it through a wall. That is the easy part, the part I do not like is he wants me to install it without a vent. Well, a tee turned up for a cheater vent.

Mind you, this guy is a Master Electrician and he's asking a Master Plumber to half ass a toilet installation.

Needless to say, I never sent the estimate, a fault on not holding to my word. I'm hoping he never calls me to do work ever again. Anyone that wants me to risk my license so they can benefit by my expertise doesn't deserve my professionalism. The whole asking me for an estimate after I told him that the toilet needed to be vented sort of pissed me off. And from the way I told him what needed to be done to properly vent it per say KY code, he blew it off like that was never going to happen. Kinda the same way that I'm never coming back to work for the guy.

all my work is strictly t+m. work's for me, and we have many repeat customers. I have a friend that bids large projects ,and I suggested I go to the brain well for some wisdom. As usual, you folks came through! thank's Tool